By now, some of your favourite markers may be getting close to needing a refill.

Probably not for a while still yet, but it pays to be prepared. It’s a real pain to run out of ink half way through a project, so it’s a good idea to start thinking about building a collection of various ink refills for your most-used colours. I would suggest your pale sky blues and base skin colours will probably be the first to go.

You can place a special order for any shade of various ink refill through the Lime Tart store. A refill ink bottle does cost more than the original marker, but don’t be tempted to save a bit of money in the short term by simply buying a new marker. The ink refill bottle will fill your ciao markers 15 times! So it is actually very good value. (Approximately 12 refills per bottle for the larger sketch markers)

You will know it’s time for a refill when your marker starts to colour in obvious streaks or the ink has trouble reaching the tip of the nib. It may start to take more and more ink to evenly soak your paper or blending becomes difficult. In desperate cases, the colour will all but disappear from the nib, leaving it white. Then you really need a refill. Stat!

 

 Look at my poor BG10 – I don’t have a refill ink for this one, so it will have to stay unloved until I can get one. It will not damage your marker if you don’t get around to refilling it straight away, it will juice right up again as good as new whenever you get around to it, but in the meantime you should take care not to apply unnecessary pressure to your drying nibs in an effort to squeeze more ink out as you could cause damage.

Your add-on kit this month comes with a blender solution refill. You may not use your blender pen as often as some other colours, but we chose to include this particular ink as it is a useful one to own as you will see some great effects using it in the coming weeks.

Your ink bottles can be stored vertically or horizontally, they have an airtight seal so as long as you correctly seal the lid, the ink will not spill.

Ready to refill?

Prepare a surface to work over – a pile of old newspapers is fine. You will not have too much trouble with your blender solution, but a stray drop of a 7, 8 or 9 marker could be disastrous! Wear rubber gloves if you feel it necessary for the darker colours, and make sure you have rubbing alcohol or alcohol based hand sanitiser ready to quickly clean up any spills.

There are a few different ways to refill your markers, I am going to focus on the basic refill, the lazy way! (Which is the way I refill!) with just a mention of the other ways, but you can try whichever technique sounds most appealing to you.

Get everything ready to go before you start, you will need:

• A work surface that won’t mind a bit of spilt ink
• Your empty marker
• Your refill bottle (make sure your marker code matches the code on the ink bottle)
• Clean up products like hand sanitiser, alcohol wipes or rubbing alcohol and cloth
• A few uninterrupted minutes, some patience and a steady hand

 Let’s go!

1. Set up your ‘refill station’ with everything you need
2. UNSCREW your refill bottle. The cap does not pull off, it screws off. DO NOT squeeze the bottle while you are taking off the cap!
3. Take the cap off the chisel end of your empty marker – Copics have one sponge inside that holds all the ink and distributes it to both nibs. You don’t need to refil from both ends. Use the chisel end as it has a greater surface area.
4. Hold your marker in one hand and the ink bottle in the other. I suggest using your dominant hand to hold the refill bottle.
5. Angle your marker so that the widest point of the chisel nib is facing upwards – creating a flat surface to place drops of ink on.
6. Use the dropper on the various ink bottle to drip (from slightly above) or dab (touching the dropper to the nib) a drop of ink at a time onto the flat surface of your chisel nib. With practice you will work out what method you prefer. You shouldn’t need to squeeze your refill bottle, hold it upside down and let the ink drop out by itself, applying a very slight pressure to the sides of the bottle if necessary.
7. Take it slowly. Allow each drop to absorb into the nib before adding a second drop. It will take several minutes to completely fill a marker this way, but it’s very easy.
8. Do not overfill. It is much better to underfill. A completely dry ciao marker will need approximately 1 to 1.5 cc’s of ink (the side of the bottle is labelled in cc’s) A sketch marker will take 2cc’s of ink. This is between 15 – 30 drops. An overfilled marker will blob on your project, and you may need to soak up (waste!!) excess ink with some paper towel before you can start using your overfilled marker.
9. Replace the cap and let your marker sit for a few moments to evenly distribute the ink.

 You can download an instruction sheet from the Copic website HERE

Other methods of refilling include:

• Using a pair of Copic grip tweezers, pull the chisel tip out of the marker, setting it aside on a pile of scrap paper. Remove the cap from the brush end (to equalise the pressure) and pour (gently squeezing) a measure of ink into the barrel of your marker.

 This is a much quicker method, but I fear it’s too easy to damage your nib and spill your ink or overfill your marker. Copic also make a booster needle that can be used for more accurate refilling with little chance of spilling ink.

• Using a pair of Copic grip tweezers, pull the chisel tip out of the marker, setting it aside on a pile of scrap paper. Attach the booster needle to your refill bottle and insert the needle into the marker barrel, applying ink directly and accurately to the reservoir sponge inside.

If you would like to order any other colours of refill inks, or want to purchase the booster needle or a pair of Copic tweezers, just contact Philippa through the online store and she can arrange a special order for you. For now, those of you with a Copic Club subscription, have a go at refilling your blender the basic drip/dab way – don’t go overboard – if your marker is still reasonably juicy, it probably doesn’t need a refill, so just add a couple of drops for practice. And start to make a list of the colours you need to buy refills for!